As most Major League Baseball fans know, players and managers wore pink armbands and ribbons on Mother’s Day to promote breast cancer awareness.
What most people don’t know is that it was the finale of a week-long program called the “Strikeout Challenge.” The program joined the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation with Major League Baseball and its clubs to create awareness about breast cancer and the importance of early detection and to raise money for breast cancer research.
Fans and players made monetary pledges per strikeout during the week. Going into Sunday’s games, there had been 1,173 strikeouts. Major League Baseball charities also committed $50,000 to the program as part of the challenge, and pink lineup cards and bases printed with the pink ribbon logo will be sold at auctions to raise additional funds for the foundation.
When I was watching baseball Sunday and saw the pink armbands, I thought it was good for baseball to promote breast cancer awareness, but I had no idea how much that gesture would mean to me in a mere few hours.
Later that day, I called my mother to wish her a happy Mother’s Day. A short while later, I received a call from her, and she told me something a son never wants to hear.
Cancer.
She has breast cancer.
And I lost it.
She calmed me down by telling me the
cancer was caught early, and afterward I went
online to find out more about what Major League Baseball is doing for cancer research and awareness. I found the “Strikeout
Challenge” and more statistics about breast cancer.
I was hit with all kinds of information, but it was the story of Dodger outfielder Milton Bradley that really hit home for me.
Bradley’s mother, Charlena Rector, is a breast cancer survivor. She was diagnosed in September 2002, and Bradley told MLB.com that he was shaken when he first heard of
her diagnosis.
“It’s always scary, because when you talk about cancer, you talk about dying,” he said. “It’s something we need to make people aware of and make sure they get tested and treated early.”
One of the first thoughts that ran through my head when my mom told me about her diagnosis was that cancer equals death. But Bradley’s quote made me think differently.
To Major League Baseball, along with the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, I have just one word to say: Thanks.

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